Thursday, September 13, 2012

Value Is Based On Buy-Ins

It's pretty obvious when you are playing fantasy tournaments that you need to figure out where your money is going.

How much rake are you paying? (If there's an overlay, sometimes none.)

When you become experienced enough to actually compete for the top prize in a tourney, you also need to consider the potential reward for what you are spending.

In other words, How much return (ROI) can you get for your entry fee(s)?

The easiest way to measure this is buy-ins.

Here's a quick example. the $3k Fan Duel baseball tourney has a $25 buy-in and a top prize of $750. Therefore the max buy-ins I can win off one entry is $750/$25 = 30 buy-ins.

Now let's move on to NFL which has a much bigger user base. The $1, $2 & $5 tourneys they run (and fill) each week offer a top prize return of 350 BUY-INS.

That's an amazing value. If you're just starting out, playing these cheap tourneys multiple times would probably be the best way to grow your bankroll.

Let's compare this return to the largest multi-entry Fan Duel NFL tourneys:

The $535 pays out $7,500 for 1st, a return of 14.01 buy-ins.

The $100 pays out $5,000 for 1st, a return of 50 buy-ins. (In this tourney you are paying the SAME RAKE as the small tourneys!)

And consider this about the FFFC: If you entered the $270 qualifier that didn't fill, you played with no rake. However, even if you made the final and finished 3rd for $25k... You still made less than 93 buy-ins on your investment.

9 comments:

I disagree with you regarding the assessment that newbies should be flocking to the high risk/high reward/high entrants type of tournaments in order to build a bankroll. While the $1-5 tournaments seem enticing; you have to either outright win or place in the top 5 to make a substantial ROI.

Generally speaking, there is a learning curve for all new DFS players and playing these types of tournaments are a such fire way to go broke before the player has had a chance to understand and utilize the scoring/roster formula.

Playing 50/50's (depending if you are able to see your opponents "win" stats like on FD)and 3-5 man leagues are a better way to go imo to learn and build a sizable bankroll. After you have a better understanding of the game then take your shots at the tournaments.

I like your valuation of the buy-in to prize ratio and rake analysis for the tournaments.